Meditation2

Third time's the charm

Mostly, I'm not a fan of Stark but this is probably his best Fossil watch design yet. I almost want to wear it.

Back to school

Buying a new pair of sneakers always signaled a new start of the school year for me--until college of course. Then, I had to show up with new pencils (Dixon), new pens (Uniball Micro), and ink for my Rapidographs. How design school changed the little things...

And so, Core77 has appropriately put together a very nice Hack to School Guide for design students. It's spot on. Oh and the part about IKEA Hacker? My roomie and I totally made that cocktail umbrella lamp.

Best Wedding Ever

All other weddings will pale in comparison. Don't believe me?

Here's some video of the post-ceremony action. (Watch for me being carried into the pool.)

Now that's what I call fortified water

Your music sucks

Order it here.

Ah, the old Meetro house...

It's actually not that dirty... Well, okay. It is.

Stretching the paltry paycheck

Ugh. I just read this article on NYTimes.com about how recent graduates should save and spend and their money. It's like reading about my life. They neglect to mention what happens when your employer doesn't provide health insurance benefits.

If you are only making $40,000, a not-untypical starting salary for a college-educated professional in a big city, the weekly gross of $769 works down to $561 in take-home pay after income taxes and payroll taxes for Social Security and Medicaid.

Were you to divert 10 percent of your salary to a 401(k) plan, the bottom line becomes $509.

In other words, a regular habit of savings costs you $52 a week. You easily frittered that away last week on things that you cannot even recall this week. A useful exercise that proves the point: For a week, try to list everywhere you spend cash or use your credit card.

Could you save another 10 percent a week, or $50? If you do, you are nearly set for life.

Can you live on $1,950 a month? Rents being what they are in certain cities like New York, San Francisco or Washington, sure, it will be tight. People do it by finding a roommate and watching their expenses (or asking for an occasional handout from Mom and Dad).

It's like reading about my own income! When I got sick with pneumonia I shelled out $330 for a doctor's visit and some antibiotics. My health insurance only for $57 of that. What a joke. Ugh.

And speaking of jokes check out this tip for recent grads:
"Do not use your home as a piggy bank if home prices are flat or going down or if interest rates are rising." As if I could possibly buy a house in the next 10 years!

"I’ll be the one who'll break my heart"

I think I like Feist's last album better but "I Feel It All" is definitely my favorite song from The Reminder.

"I love you more, I don't know what I knew before." Love it.

Not too popular

I got this from today's Very Short List email: The iVillage Baby Name Wizard which shows American baby name popularity. (No I am not posting this because of baby pangs, I just find it interesting.)

All that and a bag of chips

This morning I was reading a rather dull and poorly written piece on if Apple is good for design. I glazed over it and headed to the next entry on Design Observer and found a pretty amusing exchange between a designer and a potato chip company. He found a whole potato in his bag of chips. There are some chips that are made from powdered, dehydrated potatoes, at least we now know for sure that Cape Cod chips are made from real potatoes.

And I would never its beauty

Sex is dirt beneath and clouds above; it's shivering and shared heat; it's vulnerability and safety. To cap its joy or assuage its fear is to deny its beauty." --Ethan Imboden, founder of Jimmyjane

I'm out sick and look what happens

Our interns get locked out of the office with no bathroom key for 2.5 hours (they rounded up in the video).

Serious eye rolling time

Today's Daily Candy starts off with:

Decorating would be so much easier if you had computer powers. Hideous light fixture? Delete. Unassembled furniture? Auto format. Dark room? Open new window.

I'm still not sure if I like Daily Candy or not.

Because sometimes I am a design nerd

I was looking at Craigslist today saw a posting for a job that interested me so I clicked on the link for the design studio and, whoa, they designed the Feyman three volume set in a matching slipcase.

Early adopter

I had an MP3 player cell phone in 2000. (In hindsight it looks sooo retro.) I was hunting down bad quality recordings of Interpol before all of you. I signed up on Myspace in the first half of 2004. I was cranking out the reviews on Yelp in Feb. 2005. And now, on ThisNext I am credited with first discovering the Cupcake Courier. Yes it carries three dozen cupcakes and it's ridiculously sized like an SUV. However, it is awesome and I had it before Rachel Ray. Apparently it was invented by Jenna Fischer's friend.

I know, I'm a dork.

For the fastidious

Holy moly. New product from JimmyJane! It's called Form 6 and it has TWO motors. Wow.

Form 6 (no raunchy photos)
Features
* Waterproof & Bath-Friendly – Water resistant to a depth of 1 meter.
* Body-Safe Materials – Phthalate-free medical-grade silicone and stainless steel.
* Cordless Recharging – High capacity Lithium-Ion battery.
* Digital Vibration Modes - From gentle oscillations to exhilarating pulses.
* Quiet – Engineered for sound isolation.
* Travel-Ready – Compact and good to go. Convenient button lock.
* Soft Touch – Continuously enveloped in durable silicone.
* Intuitive Illuminated Controls – Easy to operate in any environment.

Details
* Dimensions – 7” long x 1.75” at widest point.
* Vibration Source – Dual independently controlled motors.
* Power Source – 110/220V cordless recharging Lithium-Ion battery.
* Construction – Water resistant, ultrasonically welded chassis with continuous overmold and sound isolation engineering.

"Trying to look good limits my life"

Here's a short video on Stefan Sagmeister, probably one of the most well-known living designers.

Such a little gossip

Is it bad that I like reading Valleywag more than I like The Superficial? I guess it's because I like seeing what people I know/knew are up to. Like this dude I went to Stanford with. When I was in school with him, I had a feeling I would hear about him later.

Another hungry mouth to feed in the ghettooooo

Three sought in Albertsons robbery in SF; suspect held

Delfin Vigil, Chronicle Staff Writer

Sunday, December 31, 2006

(12-31) 14:27 PST SAN FRANCISCO -- Police have one suspect in custody and are searching for three others involved in a takeover robbery at an Albertsons grocery store this morning in San Francisco's Lone Mountain neighborhood.

Four robbers entered the store at 1750 Fulton Street near Masonic Avenue about 7 a.m., just minutes after the store opened for business, police said. When officers arrived at 7:12 a.m., the robbery was ending, according to an officer at the Park Station.

One suspect was arrested at the scene carrying a toy handgun. Witnesses told police at least three other people were involved in the robbery, including a woman who appeared to be carrying an AK-47 assault rifle.

At least two customers were in the store at the time, but were shopping in the back and may not have known the robbery was taking place, police said. No injuries were reported.

Police believe the three robbers who got away took about $15,000 in cash.

A manager at the store would not comment on the robbery.

Dude, it wasn't me.

Turns out he's not always such a horrible writer

Scrambled egg memories Michael Bauer's post about his deceased father and the food memories related to him and growing up in the midwest. It's quite touching and really resonates with me because I have so many food related memories of my mom.

Playing up the monolid

Ever since my faux goth days in high school, I've been a fan of rocking chipped black nail polish. (Even my brother once came home from the mall with a bottle of Chanel's black polish.) I've switched to purple, but once I heard that Chanel was putting out a limited edition almost-black nail polish called "Noir Ceramic," to match their matte black watches, I started ogling the $18 bottles and thought about reverting to black. I managed to track down the coveted bottles but I'm still mulling over the price tag.

Anyway, so I wanted to see if it was worth it so I checked out my go-to make up forums/reviews site, MakeUpAlley (god forbid I ever pay for something before I read up about it), to see if it was any good. That made me visit an LJ community on asian beauty that an acquaintance of introduced me to, which lead me to a few rather, um, interesting sites. Okay, I'm not entirely sure what think about the following links. Really informative and useful or just scary? I don't know.

Smoky Eye Tutorial Check out the stacked before and after photos. The transformation? WOW. From plain asian jane to import model/stripper. The look is totally unoriginal but I'm sure dudes think it's hot.

Asian Beauty Blog Brought to you by a "20 year old biochemistry major/model/science nerd." Ah, the "model minority." Check out her Smoky Eye Tutorial on YouTube... "Step 11..." (Screw that, man.)

Vicarious Christmas

When I was leaving work today my boss said "Merry Christmas" to me and gave me a piece of chocolate gelt. Suffice to say, there's really no Christmas for me this year.

NY Times Ready for Christmas slide show.

Yessss!

After weeks of riding in mostly manmade snow and barren conditions, this:
The first big snowfall of the year -- weather forecasters said it could deliver 2 feet in some locations -- arrived appropriately enough on the winter solstice.

Intelligent kids turn into vegetarian adults

Children who scored higher on IQ tests at age 10 were more likely than those who got lower scores to report that they were vegetarian at the age of 30

It makes me wonder why so many very intelligent people continue to eat meat when they know full well about the health benefits of a vegetarian or mostly vegetarian diet. (Deliciousness isn't a good answer.)

Ed. 12/20/2006: Whoever is leaving comments from an IP number coming from what looks to be Yelp needs to add their name to the comments. I don't like comments without names. It feels creepy... but perhaps it is more creepy that my mad Googling sKiLLz could track down an IP number to Yelp. :D

I am not one much for Star Wars

After having watched the entire Star Wars series, I decided I am not a fan but that I do appreciate the products it has inspired like the Han Cholo jewelry line. A girl at my regular coffee shop told me about it and well, it's right up my alley. Check out the "gold digger" pendant, the break dancing pins, and my favorite, the "Baby Moving Stone Ring."

Rubik's Modern

Ah, a simple but frustratingly difficult toy gets a sophisticated new colorway. Perfect for me if I loved Rubik's Cube.

A happy Happy

My sad little chihuahua, ironically named Happy, chose to sleep on the floor of the garage every night instead of in her bed. Not a very discerning little puppy. But, if you do have a picky pup there's a doggie (and kitty) "hotel" opening in San Francisco called Wag. They offer day care and overnight care as well as swimming pools and massages. The luxury suite has rugs, paintings, sofas, and and an effing PLASMA TV. Damn those spoiled bitches!

Christmas gift shopping: Something for yeti-boys

Wow. This is actually pretty funny. The Philips Bodygroom. There is much bleeping of the words "carrot," "kiwis," and "peach." ;)

70 (Gross) Steps To Foie Gras Torchon

Everything you never wanted to see about the making of foie gras, from lobe to the dinner plate. I enjoy the occassional gross out that reaffirms my commitment to not eat meat. :)

What's next?

Ah, the joys of blowing all your money on stuff. ThisNext makes it quite easy to covet things both useless and useful. I've added a few cool things to ThisNext, most of which I own. It's a pretty cool site that I really hope has a ton of traffic but not too many contributing users. Too many users with bad taste will no doubt water down the usefulness of the site. There are many opportunities for the site to make money and I'm kinda curious if they do. Persue my recommendations and wishlist.

Ugh

I find it a little odd to read about the doings of an ex on a gossip blog. Okay, it's a lot weird. Also, the car is probably the RS4, not the S4 and they spelled his name wrong. Remind me to never give my future children unconventionally spelled names.

Pretty much everyone has seen this already

But I'm going to post Dove's "Evolution" ad anyway. Overall, I'm a fan of Ogilvy's work with Dove.

"I can’t believe I just did that."

This is too hillarious to not post-- it sounds straight out of a Woody Allen film.
Billionaire Steve Wynn put his elbow through a $139 million Picasso painting.

Follow up: How to fix it

DZ+ML 4 EVR (not to be confused with "forever")

Nation Sickened By Sight Of Happy Young Couple

Apparently the pussywhipped douchebag smiles when he sees her name on caller ID, too," blogger Jessie Fox said. "If they love each other so goddamn much, why don't they just get married and live happily ever fucking after?"

Is that an iPod in your pants...?

Levi's with an iPod dock

Introducing the Levi's® Redwire™ DLX Jean, designed for the on-the-go music lover. Custom iPod® docking cradle is built into a hidden side pocket.A red wire connects cradle to jeans, allowing for visibility of the iPod® without losing connectivity. Retractable headphone unit sits on waistband. White leather joystick controller is integrated into watch pocket, with controls to play, pause, track forward/back and adjust volume.

Hmmm... cool or lame, I'm not sure.

Yeah, Ben Folds still rocks

Ben Folds covers Postal Service's "Such Great Heights" using his piano and found objects.

Where's my veggie dog?

Where Everyone Is a Critic

Yelp.com enables ordinary customers to tout or trash. For owners of restaurants and shops, it's no longer business as usual.
By Chris Gaither, Times Staff Writer
August 25, 2006

SAN FRANCISCO — Sorry, the hot dog vendor said, no more veggie dogs. Then, as a disappointed Monica Lee ordered fries instead, his gaze drifted south and settled on her chest.

Awkward pause.

"I'm scared of you guys," he said finally, pointing to Lee's olive-green lapel pin for Yelp.com, a website on which Bay Area hipsters post reviews of hot dog stands, five-star restaurants, corner bars and neighborhood hardware stores.

A few good words on Yelp can make cash registers ring. Enough dings — like, say, no veggie dogs or a rude waitress — can put a dent in business. Although the Internet is blamed for debasing public discourse with anonymous and poorly punctuated tirades, the amateur reviews posted on Yelp may be helping restore gentility and customer service to businesses all over town.

It's bombdiggitty

90's coloring book

Nerdy stuff I never bothered to learn

Now that I know a zillion cool people who work at Macromedia/Adobe I thought that it would be appropriate to note that they have finally released Flex 2. "Flex is a web web development environment used by programmers to build rich web applications that can make use of Flash and/or Ajax. --TechCrunch

I'm addicted to the internet because it's in my blood

That's my excuse.

The future is in South Korea

Smart investments in broadband there have paid off in the form of a hyperconnected society -- here's how we can start reaping the benefits.

I, for one, welcome our South Korean overlords.

Ninety percent of the country has blazingly fast, 3-megabits-per-second broadband at home, and similarly high-speed wireless connections on the road. The telecom market is fiercely competitive, and broadband service costs the consumer less than $20 a month...

Also: On fastidious Mac users. I would count myself as one. I'm not loyal to Macs at all. If something better came along I would go investigate. I didn't read the whole entry but it starts off with discussing when "good" is better than "great." See, "good" is a great word. :)

And Oranges I’m deeply suspicious of Mac users who claim to be perfectly happy with Mac OS X. Real Mac users, to me, are people with much higher standards, impossibly high standards, and who use Macs not because they’re great, but because they suck less than everything else. Pilgrim, to me, is a quintessential Mac user in that regard; and what he’s doing is wondering if maybe things might suck less somewhere else.

It's el oh el time!

This photo of a SUV limo getting stuck in Potrero Hill is fucking awesome.

WTF? Slashdot has a new CSS?!?

Dear Slashdot,

Welcome to 2006.

Love,
Monica

My Bay to Breakers photos

Paul
Here's my photoset.

When my PowerBook breaks AGAIN...

I hope they give me a new MacBook so I can turn it into a light saber.

On my 4th trip to the Apple Genius Bar with my PowerBook they decided that all they needed to do was wipe it and reinstall. This thing better freaking work.

ed: I wanted a video of the MacSaber and I found one.

These are definitely rules, not guidelines

86 Rules of Boozing

15. If you offer to buy a woman a drink and she accepts, she still might not like you.

16. If she buys you a drink, she likes you.

41. Anyone on stage or behind a bar is fifty percent better looking.

83. The bar clock moves twice as fast from midnight to last call.

Kick him in the face, I'll try to remember that

I know way more than I ever wanted to know about the mating habits of rats and I also learned a little bit about the "libido in an atomiser."

Here are the bits I found interesting and/or hillarious from the Let Us Spray article in The Observer.

('On the five-point scale,' said patient 041, 'I would rate the erection I had as a six.')

'In a rat, there's a mating ritual,' says Palatin's CEO Carl Spana. 'The female rat will approach the male head-to-head. She will wiggle her ears, she will wiggle her whiskers, she will nibble at him, and finally she'll turn and run away.' If the male chooses not to pursue her, she may return and, as one leading rat sexologist puts it, 'kick him in the face'. This tends to do the trick.

Tiefer is one of the leading figures in a movement of academic researchers, sex therapists and women's-health activists contesting the increasing medicalisation of women's sexual problems...
Tiefer is just as dubious about PT-141, which, as she sees it, is merely the latest expression of a 'big wish' that 'we could just bypass everything we want to bypass' on our way to sexual happiness, skipping the complicated, often lifelong work of sorting out all the emotional, physical and autobiographical triggers that turn us off and on. Her prognosis for the discovery of a drug that will render that work unnecessary? 'Sorry, it's never going to happen.'

Autonomy, in other words, is as real an aphrodisiac as any substance known to science.

My dear friends

Bert made this great comic about feeling wanted. I like.

Also, for some reason my RSS reader has shown me the same daily horoscope for the past four days. It says things will be looking up. Weird.

I would have tried out if not for having a boyfriend

My friend Nicole was in the new The Lovemakers' video for "Shake that Ass." You can see Nicole getting touchy feely with a boy at 1 min. 10 sec. Very well done video but were those the best looking guys they could get? Come on! Pleh. I guess they wanted Scott Blonde to the be the best looking guy in the video.

Just generally in a bad mood.

I was speaking very passionately about something with a friend when all of sudden he asks me if I'm interested in social activism. I thought he was trying to make a joke about redirecting my energy for the greater good or something but he was a serious. I guess I have. I sort of gave up on it and said to myself, "Maybe later" in the sort of way that privledged people can say. Anyway...

I went back to the Apple store and found out that Lappy is having both hardware and software problems. The Mac "Genius" also said my scanner's drivers was "causing" some problems. I think I'm done being pissed about Lappy breaking again.

Couple interesting political clips to watch:
Harry Taylor criticizes Bush in front of his face. YES! He's got balls. You can thank him here.
Did a 747 really hit the Pentagon? Now that I think about it, I don't really remember seeing footage on TV of any wreckage... Curious.

:shudder:

  Are you sure?

  You still have time to change your mind.

  Come on, you don't really wants to see it, do you?

  Okay, fine. Here.

In the hunt for a domain name that isn't already taken

Quiz: Web 2.0 or Star Wars Character?

I'm sure, you my friends, will all score very high. Personally, I haven't taken the test.

Where's David Hasselhoff?

If I can have this car I'll get my driver's license ASAP.

Fa lala lala lalaaa

I recently signed up for an audio CD swapping site, Lala.com, and today they informed me that I will be receiving White Stripe's De Stijl. Sweet. And like all good product pushers, the first one is free (but the next ones will be $1 plus 49 cents for shipping). Not bad. They're only adding invited users so tell them you want an account and wait for your invitation. It looks like this.

Excerpt from the article from SFGate:

La la is a startup with a song in its heart. And it wants to share.
Music-swapping site hopes to offer legal alternative

Ellen Lee, Chronicle Staff Writer Tuesday, March 7, 2006

Part MySpace, Netflix, eBay and iTunes, La la incorporates pieces of each: Users list online the CDs they both want and have. In the process, they find others who share the same taste in music. Then, when one user requests a CD that another person owns, the owner drops it in the mail in a pre-paid envelope. The receiver is billed $1, plus 49 cents for shipping; the shipper pays nothing.

How very American...

I can totally see overweight American chillin' on their sofas in this for hours on end. TV dinner, TIVO, Slanket... Now something I would get excited about is if they made a smaller version for airplanes in a fabric that doesn't create static. Poly fleece and desert dry airplane cabin air would be pretty nasty.

Beautiful evidence

Edward Tufte, author of required coffee table books for designer (designer don't read!), is publishing a new book called Beautiful Evidence. The image of the introduction was too fuzzy for me to try to give up more than 60 seconds of my life to decipher so I don't know what it's about.

Speaking of beautiful...

Sweet Toy Story 2 and Requiem for a Dream trailer mashup

It ain't no Craptastateria&trade

Google serves kombucha in its cafeteria. Wacky.

iPod it

I'm not good enough to listen to music while snowboarding yet but one day I will put my Burton jacket's iPod pocket to good use. (It even has a little embroided tag with an image of an iPod.)

A sponsorship waiting to happen

Hannah Teter, American snowboarder: Listened to "Communicate" by her boyfriend's band, Strive Roots, during gold medal run. At an Olympic qualifying event in December, listened to "Higher" by k-os.

Gretchen Bleiler, American snowboarder: Her silver medal run was accompanied by Green Day's "Holiday."

Shaun White, American snowboarder: "Back in Black" by AC/DC played during gold medal run. Also likes Led Zeppelin.

What would my unconscious do?

Last week I told my brother about this pricey diamond pendant I've been thinking about getting but can't decide on (and the 25% off coupon I have expires in a week!). He called me a "penny pincher" and then told me I should just get it. Knowing his careless spending habits I'm not going to take advice from him on this.

Yes, I want the necklace but then I start to think about all the other things I could buy with $500 + tax, like this small new digital camera that's coming out in April. How insane is it to spend that much money on a thing I would wear around my neck?

On a related note, after 7 years of wanting Henry finally bought an AIBO, Sony's robotpet. When I told him about the necklace he sent me a summary of a study he had just read.

Leave big decisions to your unconscious study: Brain's hidden talents: Dutch research focuses on consumer choices

Deciding whether to slap down $40,000 on a new car or $1-million for a house should be left to your unconscious, according to new research that suggests the best way to make tough decisions is to forget about them.

Collect the relevant information, it says, then let the unconscious churn through the options. In the end, it makes for better decisions.

"Contrary to conventional wisdom, it is not always advantageous to engage in thorough conscious deliberation before choosing," says psychologist Dr. Ap Dijksterhuis

I dunno... the responsible thing to do would be to pay off a big chunk of my credit card balance.

ed. 2/22.06: I made up my mind. I'm not going to get the silly necklace.

Tom is not my friend.

Also, Tom is very much not my friend.

The internets

Um. Yeah. Henry sent me a link to the World Beard and Moustache Championships. I was not aware of the world of competitive facial hair.

My poor wallet

Am I a totally consumeristic girlie girl for wanting Tarte's double ended lipgloss just because it's called Ferris & Sloane?

Holla!

Is it wrong to want the lip balm and cosmetic case that matches my underwear? (Damnit, they're on sale now!) Who knew you could market a single song so much.

Hungry ramblings about groceries

Natural Food, Unnatural Prices "Is it possible for a corporation that sells everyday, necessary products like food to do three things at once: (1) pay a living wage, (2) charge prices that most people can afford and (3) provide an acceptable return to its shareholders?"

This is an interesting article on a company that looks like they're trying to provide good food and jobs to the public but are perhaps only interested in providing good food to people who can afford it provided that it also helps them make as much money as possible. I've only shopped at Whole Foods once (my dad and I were searching for an organic chicken and were told that we could get one at Whole Foods) so I don't really have an opinion about their prices or products. I like Trader Joe's prices ($0.89 organic beans!!!) but their produce selection is mostly a joke so I get genetically modified fruits and veggies at the Albertson's downstairs (better selection but crappier quality with pesticides). Albertson's is also an Evil Chain&trade but they were bought up recently by yet another Evil Chain&trade called SuperValu for $9.8 billion. Does make it even more evil? This looks like a no-win situation. Rainbow is too far away for me to shop there regularly. I once made a trek on Muni to Rainbow (two buses plus walking) in record heat so I could buy some organic foods. I decided that was insane and haven't been back since.

Holy shit, this is fucking depressing. It really is going end up being that rich will make cheap but less safe (even unsafe) products for the lower classes so the rich can buy the organic, healthier goods for themselves. What will be the point of that anyway when pesticides start leaking into the organic food supply? I may as well go buy my groceries from Wal-Mart. Oh, I know. I can grow vegetables with Roundup Ready seads in my backyard and then zap it with Roundup when the dandelions pop up.

I'm not down on companies making money but there's there's gotta be a point where they need to stop thinking about only money and start thinking about what's best for the our environment and our health.

Oh, I leave you with this Consumer Reports guide on when buying organic is beneficial for your health and when it's a waste of money. The term "free-range" apparently doesn't mean much anymore so there's not a whole lot you can do for the humane treatment of animals.

The joys of long term committed relationships

Heather at Dooce wrote,

Jon downloaded this photo off his phone and emailed it to me with the subject line, “Would it be tacky of me to say that I want to bang you?” Reminding me that it was the right decision to marry him.

Now it's even easier to stalk me!

I installed Meetro, a proximity based instant messenger slash friend finder, and have been using it for a couple days now. Despite that the OS X version doesn't seem to do a whole lot just yet, it sounds like the Windows version is pretty sweet. You can access your buddy lists from Yahoo Messenger, MSN, AIM, and ICQ. Sign up, put in your location, and hunt me down!

An effing awesome idea

I have needed this way too many times. I wonder what would actually happen if I really did slap one these cards on someone? Time to print up a zillion of these and see what happens.

Can't tow this!

Two hour park(ing) installation in San Francisco. What a freaking cool idea!

Liar!!!

Ugh, a bad day for Koreans:

Hwang Woo-suk, the South Korean cloning pioneer who started the world stem cell bank, has admitted to faking data, according to his collaborator Roh Sung-il. --Seed article

Ho ho whoa! It's Santa Mosh time!

Santa loves hardcore! Mosh on!

This is so messed up

Ugly images of Asian rivals become best sellers in Japan
by Norimitsu Ornishi of the NY Times.

A young Japanese woman in the comic book "Hating the Korean Wave" exclaims, "It's not an exaggeration to say that Japan built the South Korea of today!" In another passage the book states that "there is nothing at all in Korean culture to be proud of."

and

In "Hating the Korean Wave," a young Japanese woman says, "It's not an exaggeration to say that Japan built the South Korea of today!"

and

The book describes China as the "world's prostitution superpower" and says, without offering evidence, that prostitution accounts for 10 percent of the country's gross domestic product.

That is fucked up.

Designer Colors

My former design teacher's, James Victore, favorite colors.

Old School High Tech

There was a time when a landline spiral corded telephone was ridiculously high tech. I guess it's still that time.

The games we play... I'm a sore loser

Interview with Neil Strauss, author of The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists.
Hmmm... a book about picking up women? I think I'm gonna have to pick up a copy of his book so I can stay ahead of the game too.

Fake BART Station

Movie set made for the new Will Smith movie, Pursuit of Happiness.

In other news. I am god damn m'f'ing pissed off at my brother for many things I can't even get myself to write about it. Ugh.

Back to work for me.

Brushed Metal cries

It's time for some alpha-nerd humor!

The iTunes 5 Announcement From the Perspective of an Anthropomorphized Brushed Metal User Interface Theme

Brushed Metal: No? iTunes 5 is still on? Then why the fuck am I not there?

Brushed Metal: How can you say this is not a big deal? It�s fucking iTunes! The most popular app in the world. It runs on Windows. Windows! Fuckfuckfuck!

iPod Nano

Oooohhhh, shiny black new iPod Nano. Color screen, click wheel, solid state flash memory, so tiny...

Ooooh, pretty butcher block

Awesome butcher block for the natural meets modern kitchen.

I'm not a player, I just crush a lot

Successful couples are said to have chemistry, but a study by an Oxford graduate suggests that dating may actually have more to do with physics.

Richard Ecob adapted a system for modelling atoms in radioactive decay to investigate how we look for partners. He found that "super daters", people who have many short relationships, have a good effect on others' lives. This is because they break up weak couples, forcing their victims to find better relationships.

Baby daddy

A Better Pill To Swallow? Article on male oral contraceptives brings up why men would be reluctant to take The Pill if it were available like women have been doing for decades. I'll all for the option that the man take The Pill instead of the woman, but I dunno if I really trust someone else in preventing what essentially amounts to MY pregnancy. Obviously with candom, I know if the guy is putting it on correctly and everything but with The Pill how could I really be sure? It would make me uneasy to put it all in his hands.\

Simple is better

Ta-da Lists

This is so simple but I really like it! Online lists you can share online with everyone, some people, or just for yourself. You can make up to 10 lists and there's a dot that changes size according to how long your list it. You can reorder and edit the lists really easily. There's also RSS. I added a link to my list in the sidebar under "Lists."

I'll just take a moment to say that I LOVE lists that can be ordered by dragging the mouse, like in my Netflix queue.

::droooool::

Apple's new Mighty Mouse
* Touch-sensitive top shell
* 360-degree clickable Scroll Ball
* Force-sensing side buttons
* Optical tracking
* PC-compatible

BUT, that shape I never liked.

Photobooth Action

How cool is this? Photobooth.net/locations

Mus�e M�canique I, San Francisco
Mus�e M�canique II, San Francisco
Pop's Bar, San Francisco

Hmmm...

Craigslist Missed Connection

Darnit Monica!!! - m4w - 38 (financial district)
Reply to: anon-87338540@craigslist.org
Date: 2005-07-27, 3:01PM PDT

Why can't I get you out of my head??? I think about you constantly, day and night. We are such good friends, but I am selfish and wish it could be more. I wish I could just sweep you off your feet and treat you like the princess you are. Sigh...

Jesus, anyone?

Maybe this is funny only because it's my friend, Zache, but I find it damn hillarious. The tongue! hahahaha.

Cheap Wines

For when Two Buck Chuck won't cut it. Can I be a cheap wine expert? Now I don't know jack about wine but I remember after drinking way too much boxed wine for far too long my cousin opened up a bottle of some Robert Mondavi reserve, a red, and I took a sip and it was so good by comparision I nearly died. On my trip to Sonoma, I really liked Hop Kiln's A Thousand Flowers and it was just $12.50.

How small can it get?

The iPod, the iPod Mini, the iPod Shuffle... the iPod Flea. How do you ya like them, Apple?

You can call me to talk, you know

R We D8ting? This is a great article about a woman's experiences with text message love.

I turned off the phone, dumbfounded. How had this happened? How had we managed to speed through all the stages of an actual relationship almost solely via text message? I'd gone from butterflies to doubt to anger at his name on the screen, before we even knew each other.

That was it, I decided: no more text-message flirtations for me. From now on I'd stick to more old-fashioned ways of getting to know a guy. Like e-mail.

God, I hope I never experience a break up over text messages. Seth dumping me over IM was bad enough. It's just plain rude to break up with someone over the least expressive medium possible.

Summer movie season starts, finally

I'm so excited that Wong Kar Wai's new film, 2046 will be released on August 5th.

Jason Munn, poster designer

Cool! Local designer Jason Munn, who made an awesome Rilo Kiley poster, has a new website up now. Check it out. He also sells some posters too.

Otis, members only

Sorry, You'll Have to Leave, As You're Not a Member: Otis club/bar whatever is by invite only so you'll never know how lame and elitist it really is.

SF: Too rich and too poor

"...an economy oriented to entertainment, tourism, and "creative" functions is ill-suited to provide opportunities for more than a small slice of its population. Following such a course, it is likely to evolve ever more into a city composed of cosmopolitan elites, a large group of low-income service workers, and a permanent underclass--or into what San Francisco is already becoming, what historian Kevin Starr describes as "a cross between Carmel and Calcutta." --"The Rise of the Ephemeral City" by Joel Kotkin

Hardcore typographers!

Arial or Helvetica? Quiz
Ah, a typographer's subtle and meticulous work is almost never appreciated.

You have to still wear deodorant

Ovulating women favour dominant men's smell
Women are most likely to cheat on their long-term partner when they are at their most fertile, and they tend to choose genetically superior men for their fling.
So, um, why don't women choose "gentically superior" men the rest of the time? That's what I wanna know.

Mixed use building

How could people not like buildings like mine where a large business and residential spaces are in the same building? Look at Santana Row, it's all apartments with retail shops and parking garages. I like it a lot. Plus, I can tell people, yeah, I live in that building with the supermarket. Imagine if I lived right above a Trader's Joe's...

Asian kicks ass at eating

Takeru Kobayashi wins the Nathan's hot dog eating contest again. Sonya Thomas placed second.

Pedestrians go wild!

Crosswalk Button Hack: Change the Don't Walk light into Walk because terrorists always following the signs and never jaywalk.